


Shades of Future Past

by Cyn2K



Series: Future History [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Death of a grandparent, Future Fic, Hockey, It Gets Better, Jack Zimmermann's Overdose, M/M, Magical Realism, Posted first to Tumblr, Therapy, cup magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyn2K/pseuds/Cyn2K
Summary: Fic written for this prompt:Cleaning out your grandfather’s house after his death you’re going through boxes in his attic when you come across a box of photo albums labeled with your name.You smile and begin to flip through them. Your smile fades, you don’t recognize many of the people. That is when you realize the dates are from ten to fifteen years into the future.----------------Jack helps his mom clear out his grandparents' attic, a year after the overdose.  He finds a mysterious box with his name on it, and sees some things he never expected.





	Shades of Future Past

**Author's Note:**

> Check, Please! and all its characters belongs to the wonderful Ngozi Ukazu. I'm just borrowing them to play for a bit.

After the overdose and rehab, Jack returns to his parents’ house in Montreal.  He hasn’t lived there for more than a few months since his first billeting for Midgets years earlier.

He has no idea what he will do with his life.  Hockey is all he knows.

He starts seeing Dr. Turgeon twice a week. He doesn’t say much at first, but an anxiety attack in his 5th week of visits starts their discussions.  He does not talk about hockey or his father. He doesn’t talk about his lack of a future. He doesn’t talk about sex, or whatever that was with Kent. He does talk about how alone he feels. 

Bob tries to get him to come to meetings with him (keeping him in view for when he’s ready to return to hockey), but Jack can’t see that far ahead.

Seven months in, one of his Peewee coaches contacts him about coaching some of the kids at his old rink.  He says he’ll think it over.

On his next therapy visit, he brings up hockey for the first time.

 

Jack’s grandfather died a year after the overdose.

Jack’s grandparents live in California.  All 3 of the Zimmermanns come for the funeral.

Grandma has decided the house is too big for her alone, and wants to downsize to a senior community in Arizona, or maybe Florida.  Jack hopes she chooses Florida, as it’s closer to Montreal.

Alicia asks Jack to stay with her after the funeral to help clean out the house.  Bob has commitments and returns to Montreal.

Alicia’s brother and sister-in-law help out after work, but Jack does most of the heavy lifting.

California homes don’t have basements, which Jack finds odd.

They can and do have attics, though, and his grandparents had a lot of stuff.

Grandpa had a lot of WW2 memorabilia from his father’s family, including a number of diaries from both male relatives in the war, and female relatives involved in the workplace.  One of his great aunts worked at the Douglas Aircraft factory in Long Beach.

Jack takes one of the books on WWII history and spends the rest of his free time at his grandparents’ house reading all the books he can find in the collection.  Alicia arranges to have the books and diaries shipped home to Montreal, as Grandma and his cousins have no interest in them.  (He will later use 2 of the diaries as source material in his senior thesis.)

The box with Jack’s name on it is underneath a quilt Jack recognizes from a visit just before he entered the Q.  Jack smiles. They’d gone to Knott’s Berry Farm because his grandpa loved the restaurant there. It had been a good visit.

There are 3 photo albums in the box - one a deep red, one blue and gold, and one white.  He doesn’t remember his grandparents taking that many pictures.

Opening the red album, the first picture he sees is a pie. It looks good, but he’s never much cared about sweets. He turns the page.

The pages are filled with pictures of a group of men in front of a rather dilapidated looking house. Most of them are tall, but there’s a much shorter man right in the middle. He had big brown eyes. Jack thinks they look happy. He smiles and turns the page.

The same men, now joined by several women, including one of the shortest women Jack has ever seen, are now in front of a large building.  Jack thinks it’s probably an ice rink.

He takes another look at the last picture, and realizes one of the men looks like his father.  He looks again.  The man has blue eyes.  He is standing next to, and has his arms around, the short blond man he noticed before, and a man with a very bushy mustache.

He flips through several more pages. The group appear to be taking pictures at a college campus, and they look like good friends. The man who looks like his dad makes his skin feel shivery. His eyes are drawn, over and over, to the blond man, who isn’t always smiling.  Sometimes he looks like he’s scolding one of the others.  The man who looks like his dad is looking at the blond as well.

Jack’s heart hurts. He’s never had a group of friends like that. He puts the album down and picks up another one.

The blue and gold album has a logo on the front that he recognizes.

He opens the page to a Falconers hockey team photo on the ice. He doesn’t want to recognize the man in the #1 sweater with a C on the shoulder. He is now shivering.

He can’t deny that the next photo is himself - a promo shot of him in the same #1 sweater. He looks so old.  There’s a small scar on his chin, and maybe he’s broken his nose at least once.

The next several pages are game shots.  He glances at them, recognizing scrimmages and game shots with other teams. He does not see any that look like the Aces.

He turns the page, catches a glimpse of silver, and shuts the book quickly before he can swear whether he saw a certain large cup.

He puts the book back in the box, and takes several deep breaths before lifting out the white album.

On the first pages he sees photos of himself with his parents.  Looking at his parents first, he thinks they look good.  He doesn’t recognize the dress his mother is wearing, but thinks they must have been tired, as they look older. He smiles.

He could almost deny that the man in the center is himself.  His hair is shorter than he’s ever remembered wearing it, and he looks like his dad. He looks happier than he's ever seen himself in the mirror.  The suit doesn’t look anything like his style. He flips the page.

The next set of pages features pictures of a smiling blond man with beautiful big brown eyes and a radiant smile, surrounded by what must be his parents. Jack recognizes the blond from the red album.

The next two pages hold pictures of a group of people, all featuring the blond man from the previous page. Many of them look like the men from the first album. There are only two women in any of the pictures - the short Asian woman from the red album, and an African-American woman who seems to be coaxing the others into place. Jack wonders why he’s not there.

Two of the pictures were taken when everyone seems to be laughing hard, except the blond man, who looks indignant. He is reminded of the scolding picture from the red album. He turns the page.

His own face smiles back at him, along with the big eyes and wide smile of the blond man standing next to him.

While Jack-in-the-picture has a regular tie, the blond man wears a bow tie.  They are the same color, as are the suits they’re wearing. Jack’s smile fades. He turns the page.

Their parents have joined them in this picture.  Everyone is smiling. Their moms are wearing corsages.

Jack feels light-headed.  He shuts the album and places all 3 back in the box, carrying it downstairs.

He does not discuss the box with his mom, but decides to bring it home.

They finish clearing out the attic two days later.  Alicia and her mother have been researching real estate online. Grandma still leans towards Arizona, although she might stay in California to be closer to friends.

Alicia and Jack return to Montreal.   The WWII books and diaries he’d picked out appear on one of his shelves, replacing some of his hockey trophies.

Jack looks through the photos once more, avoiding a certain silver image in the Falconers album, before sealing the box and hiding it in the back of his closet.

He feels hopeful for the first time since waking up in the hospital.  Since long before that, really.

He contacts his Peewee coach and agrees to start helping out with the kids. Alicia and Bob are thrilled, but decide to say nothing.

Dr. Turgeon is the first person he talks to about Kent.  While his parents know he was with Kent, they’ve never talked about it. Progress is made.

A few months later, Jack talks to his parents about attending college.  He doesn’t let himself think about the box in the closet, but is pleased when his mom brings up Samwell as an option.

He mostly forgets about the box in the closet.

At Samwell, he chooses history as a major, with a focus on the 20th century and WWII. He joins the hockey team. He sees a counselor on a regular basis.

Two years later, when he first sets eyes on the small blond frog on the Haus tour, he can’t remember why he looks familiar. This irritates him.

The next three years pass.  Jack graduates and joins the Falconers.  He does not remember the box at all. He and Bitty come out to their friends and families. 

Bitty graduates and moves to Providence, to no one’s surprise. Jack takes him to dinner and proposes 2 weeks later, also to no one’s surprise. They marry the next summer.  Jack and Bitty work with Jack's therapist on coping strategies for anxiety and ADHD in a relationship.

Bitty’s mom makes a photo album of the wedding. She understands her son-in-law, and the cover is plain white.

Bitty keeps a photo and scrapbook of his time with the Falconers. He also starts working on a cookbook. Jack notices, but doesn’t pay much attention.

In his fourth year with the Falconers, his first year with the C, the team goes all the way. Jack comes out on his Cup Day, which he spends in Montreal with his family and most of the SMH gang.

Jack is traded to the Schooners a year later. He leads his new team to the second round of the playoffs, but they are eliminated by the Sharks.  He is traded again, to the Habs.  Jack suspects his dad may have been involved.

Jack returns to Dr. Turgeon, who congratulates him, belatedly, on his marriage, and praises him for continuing to make therapy a priority. They do not talk much about hockey.

Bitty isn’t thrilled about the paperwork for living in Canada, but does enjoy spending time with his in-laws while Jack is away.

Bitty’s working on his second cookbook, and Alicia has taken to making guest appearances on his vlog.  Bob makes occasional outrageous appearances, leading to the trending hashtags #badbobbakes and #bittybakesbadbob.  Shitty thinks it's hilarious.

They win the Stanley Cup two years later. Jack is 32 and starting to think about retirement. He doesn’t think too hard around the Cup, because you can’t take chances with Cup magic.

Jack and Bitty have a house and a dog, and perhaps the cat that keeps showing up for chicken that Bitty may slip her from time to time, and are thinking of starting a family. Suzanne and Alicia may be tag-teaming them.

They return to Samwell for Jack and Shitty’s 10-year reunion, after Jack’s second Cup win with the Habs. (He just might have had some thoughts about that). His Cup day is a week later, back in Montreal.

The SMH gang decide to throw their own reunion. They’ve rented a house, and Bitty bakes. The gang devours the first three like they’ve not seen pie in years. (As if Bitty would ever leave his friends pie-less.)

Jack arranges with Lardo for a photographer friend of hers to come with them and take photos while they tour the campus and spend time together. Jack has his own camera, but knows that time with friends is more important than taking the right photo. The photographer gets his own pie.

The photographer sends him a digital file, but also sends Jack a photo album of the best shots. The album cover is red.

He opens the album to a photo of one of Bitty’s pies.  He turns the page.  There are Ransom and Holster, Shitty and Lardo, Chowder and Cait (no one calls her Farmer any more), Ford and Nursey and Dex, and Jack and Bitty in front of the Haus, which is looking even worse than when he’d lived there. And another of them in front of Faber.

And he remembers. He does not look any further.

He does, however, gather the wedding album, the Falconers album, and the reunion album, and places them in a box. After sealing the box, he asks Bitty to label the box with his name. It sits on the chair in their bedroom.

On Cup Day, he whispers his wish when no one is looking.

When Jack and Bitty get home, the box is gone.  He’ll pick it up the next time they go to visit his parents.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this, my first ever fan fiction, yesterday on Tumblr, and people said such nice things! I couldn't resist posting it here. It's more of an outline, as it started off as just a bunch of bullet points.
> 
> I did take the opportunity to clean up a few inconsistencies.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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